Types of material I would refine

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goldsilverpro

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I dragged out the old incomplete list I made of PM bearing scrap that appeared on the 1st GRF thread I ever posted on. I broke it into 3 categories, based on my general subjective ideas of profitability - yellow (stuff that I would likely refine), pink (stuff that I might refine), and no color (stuff that I wouldn't refine - I would only assay and sell). All, of course, would depend on quantity, value, and what I had to pay for it. With all, there could be exceptions.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=95
 

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Nice list, just curious why is sterling silver or gold teeth better than karat gold? Is it because of the competition?

Göran
 
Great list.

I could add a few bits to the IT list if it wouldn't be considered presumptuous Chris?

Jon
 
g_axelsson said:
Nice list, just curious why is sterling silver or gold teeth better than karat gold? Is it because of the competition?

Göran


I was wondering the same thing, seems like karat would be one of the best materials to refine in terms of metal return as well as profit, atleast in my opinion.
 
its-all-a-lie said:
g_axelsson said:
Nice list, just curious why is sterling silver or gold teeth better than karat gold? Is it because of the competition?

Göran


I was wondering the same thing, seems like karat would be one of the best materials to refine in terms of metal return as well as profit, at least in my opinion.
My subjective list was about stuff I would actually refine and make a good profit on. If I were a small to medium sized refiner doing karat gold, I truly believe it would be more profitable and faster, in most cases, to lock in the price, melt, drill, assay, ship, and receive money (say, 99.5%). If I built another refinery, the first things I would setup would be a crucible melting furnace, fire assay, and a makeshift fume hood. Just with that, I could sample, buy, and sell almost anything. The only times I would refine karat gold would be if I were very small (maybe) or very large. If I were only doing about 5 oz/week, I might refine it myself just because I enjoy doing it.
 
One good reason for a small to medium scale refiner to refine their own material would be if you can make a product other than pure metal bullion, especially if you can find a niche product.

There is very little profit to be made from refining, the profits come from making specialized products.

Of course, it is not necessary to refine your own material to make a product, you can always melt-assay-sell, then buy pure metals or pre-made alloys out of which to make your product, but you lose money at every transaction, which, if you are efficient are refining, can be saved.

Refiners often pay x days after receipt of material. They therefore have lease-fee-free use of your material for those days. If they are efficient, those days can be used to turn metal over, in some cases 2-3 times or more, saving a lot of money on lease fees.
 
bigbaud said:
Router dust?
Dust from rounding the edges of circuit boards. If there are gold plated fingers on the edge the dust will contain gold.

Göran
 
Thank you for the complete list.
I am impressed with the number of option's you have in your aria.
There not being any real manufacturing in South West England not meany are available to me locally.Nevada having such a long history with Au production and California with Silicon Vally must be a duck shoot.
Unfortunately in the U.K. almost all sources are imported in very small quantity's.
And between the Tax man needing an accurate account of all expenditures and profit and the new precursors and poisons unit or the CBRNE unit that came on line this year
You do not need a licence for the substances currently in your possession. But If you are not set up as a trading business by 3 March 2016, you will need a licence even for the substances in your possession.
So in order to operate with out a special home office licence you have to be able to demonstrate to a supplier that you need the substances for the purposes of your trade, business or profession at that current time.
So now any one who want's to actively refine in any capacity has to be set up as a business or spend month's inline trying to gain a licence form central government,which if you have tried before as I have know's that is a hard road to go down.
So in the U.K. you are considered business even if you are just finding your feet the moment you start to buy and sell any noble metals beyond that you happen to have by chance..
But more options mean better chance of success.
 
Westerngs said:
One good reason for a small to medium scale refiner to refine their own material would be if you can make a product other than pure metal bullion, especially if you can find a niche product.

There is very little profit to be made from refining, the profits come from making specialized products.

Of course, it is not necessary to refine your own material to make a product, you can always melt-assay-sell, then buy pure metals or pre-made alloys out of which to make your product, but you lose money at every transaction, which, if you are efficient are refining, can be saved.

Refiners often pay x days after receipt of material. They therefore have lease-fee-free use of your material for those days. If they are efficient, those days can be used to turn metal over, in some cases 2-3 times or more, saving a lot of money on lease fees.
I know and respect the big refinery Westerngs works for and I know he's been there quite awhile in a technical capacity. They make a lot of PM products and I've bought from them a couple of times - 999.8+ Ag wire, if I recall. Outside of Sel-Rex, none of the 32 refineries I worked or consulted for made any sort of product from the PMs other than, maybe, an occasional order of shot or casting grain. I guarantee you they made money on the refining - of course, many of them took a little off the top. Once you know how to do all the technical stuff well, profitability in a PM refinery is mainly dependent on 2 things:
(1) The types of scrap you decide to process. Gotta be based on profits.
(2) Definitely known available sources for these types of scrap, in necessary quantities.

If I were to start another small to medium refinery (I've been thinking about it), I would first look at the colored scrap list I posted that started this thread and try to find the easiest, most profitable, available, safe, somewhat local, hopefully stuff I have run in volume before, stuff I like to do and fits my situation types of scrap. With my particular experience and knowledge, I would definitely process aircraft scrap at some point and would do a big search/network thing to find out exactly where it is located. I would possibly buy gold filled from the gold buyers and good sorted CPUs, pins, fingers, etc. from people and small companies that scrap out electronic stuff. I know I could pay more than, say, boardsort, for the good stuff. Doesn't take long for word to get around. I would also do a lot of certain types of silver scrap. Much of it sits around or sells for a song. Most people don't want to mess with it. Just got to find out where it is (locating where any type of scrap is is always #1). Everything is assayed, of course.

After gaining some momentum, I would think about expanding things. I would locate reps around the country that would, for a fee, find the types of scrap I want. They're out there, somewhere. If I were to do other types of electronic scrap, it would only be manufacturing scrap - I like scrap before it's been assembled. Lots of reps in that industry.

Just my present take on a few things. I might do everything differently.

Chris
 
goldsilverpro said:
Westerngs said:
One good reason for a small to medium scale refiner to refine their own material would be if you can make a product other than pure metal bullion, especially if you can find a niche product.
(...)
(...)
If I were to start another small to medium refinery (I've been thinking about it), I would first look at the colored scrap list I posted that started this thread and try to find the easiest, most profitable, available, safe, somewhat local, hopefully stuff I have run in volume before, stuff I like to do and fits my situation types of scrap. With my particular experience and knowledge, I would definitely process aircraft scrap at some point and would do a big search/network thing to find out exactly where it is located. I would possibly buy gold filled from the gold buyers and good sorted CPUs, pins, fingers, etc. from people and small companies that scrap out electronic stuff. I know I could pay more than, say, boardsort, for the good stuff. Doesn't take long for word to get around. I would also do a lot of certain types of silver scrap. Much of it sits around or sells for a song. Most people don't want to mess with it. Just got to find out where it is (locating where any type of scrap is is always #1). Everything is assayed, of course.

After gaining some momentum, I would think about expanding things. I would locate reps around the country that would, for a fee, find the types of scrap I want. They're out there, somewhere. If I were to do other types of electronic scrap, it would only be manufacturing scrap - I like scrap before it's been assembled. Lots of reps in that industry.

Just my present take on a few things. I might do everything differently.

Chris

That's good to know I'm not going crazy with my plan by listening it from a very experienced guy. That is exactly what I'm doing, and I'm just refining my first 150 computers. I'm a bit curious about the airplane things. I know places around where I can find some airplane scrap... will take a look soon!

Tks for the list, it's awesome!
 
I like this topic a lot.

Really curious to know more about your opinions & experience on Silver scrap.

Since there's a lot of Sterling jewelry, silverware & coins available almost anywhere, how do you guys are turning a profit out of it ?

Simply buying, melting, assaying and selling OR refining the material to profit from the other PMs carried with the silver ?

Let's say someone can play with a Sterling feedstock of 100 to 200 lbs per month acquired for 80% spot, what would be your strategy ?
 
alexxx said:
I like this topic a lot.

Really curious to know more about your opinions & experience on Silver scrap.

Since there's a lot of Sterling jewelry, silverware & coins available almost anywhere, how do you guys are turning a profit out of it ?

Simply buying, melting, assaying and selling OR refining the material to profit from the other PMs carried with the silver ?

Let's say someone can play with a Sterling feedstock of 100 to 200 lbs per month acquired for 80% spot, what would be your strategy ?

alexxx

If that was the position I was in,this is how I would do it.

(1) First and foremost,would be to seek out and find me a wealthy dedicated silver hobby collector that is willing to pay over spot,for fine pure silver shot,ingots,and crystals.When I had that secured by paper contract then and only then would I move forward.

(2)I would draw up a second contract for my supplier,that would insure 100-200 pounds a month and give him 85 percent for doing so.Contract would be for a minimum of 5 years time and the option to extend it to 10 years after that.

(3)Build two silver cells from 18/8 stainless steel.The first cell would be big enough to hold an electrolyte that contains five of the pounds dissolved in it.This cell would be used to remove the majority of impurities,by running it at the prescribed electrochemical series.I would melt all 95 remaining pounds into shot and run it through the cell.The second cell would be to get the silver into the high fines pure form.I would make this one big enough to hold twenty pounds of the previous cells crystals digested in the electrolyte.I would then melt the remaining weight of previous cells crystals into shot.

(4)I would then find me a power supply that could provide 12v 100amps for the second cell.Then I would start the cell and start prepping the next hundred pounds.

This is how I would do it,you may or may not agree with my method but this is what it would take for me to take on such an endeavor.Thanks in advance.



modtheworld44
 
Ok Mod, so you want to start with a cell around 10 gallons of electrolyte? At 60 grams per liter? Are you suggesting running the entire 100 pounds through it? That would give you a solution when you are done with a bit over 100 grams per liter of copper and it will produce silver to feed your second cell.

I am confused by what you mean by this
This cell would be used to remove the majority of impurities,by running it at the prescribed electrochemical series.

What is the prescribed electrochemical series?

And your second cell will be around 40 gallons, again at 60 grams per liter? With the feed for the second cell coming from the first pre-treatment, you will produce a solution which will have a long life.
 
4metals said:
Ok Mod, so you want to start with a cell around 10 gallons of electrolyte? At 60 grams per liter? Are you suggesting running the entire 100 pounds through it? That would give you a solution when you are done with a bit over 100 grams per liter of copper and it will produce silver to feed your second cell.

I am confused by what you mean by this
This cell would be used to remove the majority of impurities,by running it at the prescribed electrochemical series.

What is the prescribed electrochemical series?

And your second cell will be around 40 gallons, again at 60 grams per liter? With the feed for the second cell coming from the first pre-treatment, you will produce a solution which will have a long life.

4metals

The sizes and per liters sound good to me on all accounts.
Here is the link for the google search I just did for electrochemical series,there's images of the charts I'm referring to.I'll have to go find the video that goes with it,give me a day or two to track it down.I should still have it bookmarked hopefully.Thanks for the calculations and for your time.

P.S Almost forgot to add this- https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=electrochemical+series

modtheworld44
 
OK, I thought you were referring to some formulary which gives you the power to clean up the silver in a sort of electrowinning process but you just mean a typical breakdown cell.

I don't typically use breakdown cells for sterling because the waste generated in the breakdown cell will be on a par with the waste generated running a cell until the copper gets to about 60 grams per liter. So the difference in waste is similar. The use of a breakdown cell is usually reserved for silver content in the 50% range, although if your goal is to run a high purity cell which will last a long time without copper contamination, a breakdown on sterling is more efficient than nitric dissolves and cementation.
 
4metals said:
OK, I thought you were referring to some formulary which gives you the power to clean up the silver in a sort of electrowinning process but you just mean a typical breakdown cell.

I don't typically use breakdown cells for sterling because the waste generated in the breakdown cell will be on a par with the waste generated running a cell until the copper gets to about 60 grams per liter. So the difference in waste is similar. The use of a breakdown cell is usually reserved for silver content in the 50% range, although if your goal is to run a high purity cell which will last a long time without copper contamination, a breakdown on sterling is more efficient than nitric dissolves and cementation.

4metals

I agree, normally for my 1 gallon cell I would do it your way as well.I was just going with fastest and most profitable way that I could see for the scenario,something that could be put into a continuous loop.In other words longer run times for production verses longer stop times for cleaning and electrolyte reclamation.So do you feel this would be viable for the scenario I out lined,with the end goal being high fines purity silver.Thanks in advance.



modtheworld44
 
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